Conservative Home are simply reporting the outcome of a survey. I don’t see any quote on here that says the points being put across are actually those of Conservative Home.

In terms of LGBTory, I agree they seem to be very quiet when it comes to these matters and it would be nice to hear a bit more from them challenging this kind of stuff. Although I don’t understand how you can just claim them to be a meaningless PR stunt if you don’t know the answer to your first two questions. Have you contacted them at all?

And if you wish to use bigotry as a reason not to vote for a party then frankly we might as well all just stay home because every party has it’s bigots, they’re maybe just as not obvious

Well, not altogether true. If it weren’t for the Liberal Democrats forming the coalition, equal marriage wouldn’t even be on the agenda either, make no mistake about that. Cameron brought it in as an IOU to Clegg. You forget, the majority of the Tories were against CPs including Cameron and it didn’t even win by a landslide in the HoL, no thanks to them.

Interestingly now that HoL reform has been dropped there’s a big gap in the legislative programme for the next year. Marriage equality anyone? If Cameron plays it right then marriage equality could be done and dusted long before anyone is asked to cast a ballot in a general election. Not that I expect anything but the highest level of incompetence from this government mind you.

Also can labour get a leader that looks and sounds like an adult? Can he at least hire some consultants like Thatcher did, to work on his image and presentation? I wouldn’t like us to end up with a really extreme conservative government led by Boris the clown, simply by default! He’s already cosying upto Murdoch…

Before the election I commented on various stories about the Tories and was not infrequently attacked and insulted by other Pink News readers about not having moved on since the 1980s etc. because I refuse to be taken in by Cameron. I suppose I’ll get some (tired, old, unoriginal) stick now, but I’ll say it again; they’re TORIES for godsakes. TORIES ARE
HOMOPHOBES.

Really dAVID? You’re actually going to use that line in a direct reply to me now after I challenged you on it?

OK. Provide a definitive list of the 154 Tory MPs who have confirmed they will be voting against marriage equality that would mean that if marriage equality is passed then it would be in spite of the Tories alone.

Prove that your little continous rant is nothing more than hysterical ranting based on nothing but your pathetic anti Tory opinions.

Equal marriage will require a significant number of Tories to help it get passed, but I don’t see how it can since the majority of them are not in favour. They will be the ones to defeat it of course. Either way, Labour is coming back in 2015 and the Tories will be going back to the same nasty party politics that they’re notorious for. A leopard never changes its spots. They will never gain more gay support if they defeat equal marriage.

It’s generally very odd how knee jerk and rightwing so many posters on here are – along with how often they will take advantage of a slack moderation system to bully dissent into the long grass…

On this issue I both agree AND disagree with RufusRed’s sentiment.

I agree that the Conservatives are naturally homophobic in the same way that they’re naturally pro wealthy people and privilege and anti poor people; that they’re naturally drawn to xenophobia, racism and jingoism.

However, there are of course, as Ken Livingston so rightly said, ‘riddled’ with gay members…both (traditionally) covertly and more recently (and to be welcomed) openly out and vocally campaigning…

I do buy Cameron’s support for Gay Rights though – even though it probably did orignally arise from the understanding that many many gay men (in particular) have knee jerk, uptight and reactionary tendencies themselves and are therefore stupid enough to vote Tory given enough superficial gloss and spin…

You selfish, egotistical lefty tosser.
The NHS is far more important than a few queens demanding equality.
I’m all for same-sex marriage, but on the scale of things, it comes in about equal with picking bits of fluff out of my belly button.
FFS man, get your head out of your arse and some bloody perspective!

It is unfortunate that the this Tory group fells this way. I guess there are still to many Socially Conservative’s in the Tory party, like Ann Widdecombe,moaning and complaining about equality and instead trying to promote there biogeted agenda, taking us back 30 years in time. I fell sorry for the Tory members that “genuinely” do believe in equality that are being let down by some of their colleagues in the Tory party. (More proof that you can never trust the Conservative party, or at least parts of it. )

I occasionally wonder if the compassionate policy towards gay couples is a cover for more untoward goings on generally, such as the privatisation of the NHS by stealth (according to doctors and nurses), the closing down of major A&E departments in central London, leaving no accessible emergency cover, and making sure their pals in the finance sectors maintain their high flying lifestyles. Frankly I’m disappointed with the lot of them, including Labour, who don’t seem to have a clue either.

yet the NHS can find money to pay £2million to rent empty buildings and have £2.4BN in empty properties – one of them has been empty for 22 YEARS! … They also did not reclaim the tuition and maintience fees they have paid for people who have dropped out of their nursing degrees. If the NHS is paying for your degree which you don’t have to pay back then you bloody well finish it or give the money back.

Im glad that this coalition government is fixing wasted expenditure so that this money can be spent on employing nurses and cancer drugs

Surely if the Conservatives droped their gay marriage commitment and both Labour and the Lib Dems were in favour- they would AGAIN be re-establishing them as the official NASTY party? How could that possibly help them win in 2015? David Cameron has been trying to modernise the party for years- it would be seen as a highly retrograde step.

This seems obvious to most people, but the grass roots are very attached to their prejudices and they assume they’re shared by the rest of the country, ignoring all the elections they’ve lost since 1997.

And we all know who will be responsible if equal marriage fails in Parliament…..the Tories! The majority of them don’t support it and won’t. There is something intrinsically wrong with them if they’re quite prepared to see their party go down in flames by not supporting it since many of their constituents have vowed not to vote for them thereby giving an easy win to Labour. Bring it on, Tories, you’re going to lose either way.

Absolutely nothing, will make the Tory win the next general election, and if you win will be a minority, forcing a new coalition with the Liberals again, nor project to redraw the boundaries, save the party from imminent defeat in 2015

From the point of view of the Nasty Party, it seems it’s one down and one still to go… will they have the time to complete their task of dropping marriage equality or will the coalition split before 2015?

Boundary changes would have helped the Tories, significantly. They knew there would be consequences to not doing Lords reform, and they were aware of what the price would be. Now they’ve paid the price. I think their changes just went from ‘difficult’ to ‘impossible’ to win the next election.

More to the point, rather than it being a numbers game where a coalition between Tories and LibDems is the only one which works, next time it will be Labour / LibDems in a coalition, or Labour alone.

It’s quite something to destroy your party’s chances at the next election — for something that’s going to happen within the next few years regardless. I believe we really can trust Labour and LibDems on their commitment to this.

All the major parties support it so who would they defect their support to? The argument that it would give them a better chance is flawed theres always more of a younger generation to be alienated then there are of the generation past an age where they can be accepting of other people – I noticed they want “stronger immigration” … mildy racist in my opinion as some “immigrants” do amazing jobs like becoming qualified nurses (rather then the NHS paying for people to qualify) – perhaps they would be better off joining the BNP.

james, the majority of the Tories do NOT support equal marriage and I doubt if that will change if and when it reaches Parliament for a vote. The defeat will be down to them, guaranteed. I don’t think there will be sufficient numbers of them to guarantee passage either and we need some of them to vote with Labour and the Liberal Democrats, at least 100 of them. I doubt if it’s even half of that right now and I don’t see that number growing.

“Mildly racist”?
No, just patriotic and looking after our own.
After Labours immigration mismanagement of the last 13 years coupled with a massive influx of wannabes from Eastern Europe, we are now back to massive unemployment, and overworked public services including social welfare, police, education and health. If it means shipping out all these people that shouldn’t be here and putting our own people back in work and getting this country on its feet again, then yes, I must be a racist too.

NEITHER of these policies are controversial. Equal rights for all British citizens and doing something to cull the ever-expanding numbers in the Upper House should BOTH be subject to immediate attention. These things cost nothing to implement, and provide only benefits to the entire country as a result.

If someone really cannot see that then they need to give themselves a damn good shake.

Effing bloody Thatcherites AGAIN!! Why can’t they just leave if they hate this country so much? ;-)

I’d vote for a cut in benefits (free travel etc) for pensioners. Things are often skewed in their favour. Not all pensioners are poor – most are comfortable and a few are well off. Yet they often shape policies and act as a drag on modernising britain.

I doubt it. But I agree they wouldn’t be pleased. But more importantly its David Cameron’s “clause 4″ moment to show that the conservative party has modernised. If he fails then he loses all credibility.

Not a chance. They aren’t going to pull out of the closest thing they’ve ever had to running the country just because of some minor (and yes, on the grand scale of things, gay marriage is *pathetically* minor) little nugget of legislation.

I can tell you what will be a vote winner: A referendum on EU Membership NOW!
People have different views on Europe and not everybody agrees with me but before you give this comment the ‘Thumbs Down’, hear me out.
The EU which was founded on good intentions has sadly grown into a monster and with the single currency just about to go pear-shaped, I fear that far-right parties gain votes as people in those countries turn to them in dispair. Here in the UK voters are turning to UKIP which does not want to introduce marriage equality. The Tories should press ahead with marriage equality but if they let us have a say on Europe, they will wipe out support for UK. The alternative will be a Labour government who, while advancing gay rights during their 13 years in government, raided our pensions, sold off our gold reserves at rock-bottom prices and nearly bankrupted this country in bailing out greedy bankers.

Judging by the ‘thumbs down’ I get for my comments regarding the EU it appears that many PN correspondents favour EU membership. I, myself do not wish to be on board a sinking ship. Do we gays REALLY need the EU? Homosexuality was decriminalized in England and Wales six years before we joined what was then the EEC. Norway and Iceland both have marriage equality and they are not EU members (same with South Africa, Argentina and some US and Mexican states). Denmark and Sweden which enjoy marriage equality are both Euro-sceptic members of the EU and retain their old currencies. I do not want to withdraw Britain from the Council of Europe which is a different entity to the EU and I wish Britain to remain part of NATO.
I do not hate the EU because of it’s principles. Nor do I oppose the principle of a single currency but unfortunately in practice it is not working and we are heading for the same sort of depression that brought the likes of Hitler to power in the 1930’s.

Tim Montgomerie, editor of ConservativeHome, is a vocal support of gay marriage – we should recognise allies like that rather than label everyone as bigots. These results are not surprising when you consider that most tory activists at grassroots level will be old people. Most old people hate sexual issues of any kind (as that ship has sailed for them). Take heart that it is not the number one issue on the list!